Tuesday marks the 20th anniversary of the death of concert impresario Bill Graham, founder of a business empire and a major player in rock 'n' roll history both in the Bay Area and throughout the United States. The Chronicle's longtime pop music critic Joel Selvin remembers that night.

The phone rang at 4 in the morning. Never good news. It was the wife of the road manager of Huey Lewis and the News, who had played a concert the night before at the Concord Pavilion.

"Bill doesn't answer and Rosanne said Killer's not home," she said, referring to the wife of Bill Graham's helicopter pilot, Steve Kahn, known universally as Killer.

The rain had been pouring down steadily all night. This did not sound good. It took a while at that hour to raise anyone, but finally a California Highway Patrol dispatcher in Napa answered. She asked if I had any further details other than simply inquiring about a possible helicopter crash. I knew the model of the helicopter. "Bell Ranger," I said.

"Bingo," she said.

Barring going out in person to the swampy marshes outside Sonoma where police were conducting a grisly search, there was little to do. In those days of the joint operating agreement, The Chronicle did not publish a Sunday edition, and the Saturday paper was already landing at doorsteps around the Bay Area.

I put in a call to Associated Press and was automatically transferred to the Los Angeles office, where an answering machine took my call. I left the briefest of messages and went back to bed. A half hour later, the phone rang again. It was a guy from the Associated Press, just coming to work, calling to see if I could confirm the death of concert producer Bill Graham in a helicopter accident.

"One news agency calling another for confirmation of a news event is an act of desperation," I told him.

At 8 in the morning, I decided to call The Chronicle's managing editor. We had recently received a wallet-size card introducing a new program of emergency communication among newsroom staffers, and I was able to raise him at home on Saturday morning. I knew there was nothing for me to write or for The Chronicle to do for another 24 hours, but I thought he would like to hear the news from one of his own guys. He was more interested in how the new emergency communication system worked.

I went down to the Bill Graham Presents offices on Fifth Street, where people were slowly gathering - not just the people who worked there but also other people from the local music community. Everyone wandered around stunned and dismayed. Bill Graham was dead. In hours, the news would spread beyond these few, but, for a time, that early Saturday morning, this news was theirs alone to absorb.

By the end of the next weekend, they had thrown a huge memorial concert in Golden Gate Park with the Grateful Dead (Jerry Garcia would not die for four more years); Santana; John Fogerty; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; a reunited Journey; Robin Williams; and many others. More than 300,000 people attended.

Bobby McFerrin looked out at the crowd. "It's like a piece of the sky fell," he said.

It was sometime later I heard the story of Graham's departure from Concord that night. He had gone to the show just to say hello to the band. During intermission, the steady rain turned fierce. Some people huddled around Graham backstage, as he went to leave, trying to persuade him not to fly in the storm. Mario Cipollina, bass player for Huey Lewis and the News, told Graham he could take his limousine and Cipollina would ride home with one of the other guys from the band. John Toffoli, general manager of the Concord Pavilion, assured Graham the helicopter could be stowed overnight and covered with tarps.

Steve Kahn leaned into the crowd.

"I'll have you home in 15 minutes," he said.

The band was onstage playing when gusting winds blew Graham; his girlfriend, Melissa Gold; and pilot Kahn into a 200-foot electrical tower outside Sonoma. The entire concert went dark and quiet for a moment before power came back.